Tak’asic

Tak'asic operated as a fabless semiconductor company specializing in dedicated imaging processors and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for the digital office equipment market. Founded in 1991 by Bruno Paucard, the company initially began as an ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design house. Paucard, who started his career at the French research center INRIA, transformed the company into a printing technology product startup in 2000. The firm established dual headquarters in Paris, France, and San Mateo, California, to serve original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

The company's business model focused on providing turnkey hardware and software solutions to OEMs, enabling them to reduce development costs and accelerate time-to-market for their own products. Tak'asic's clients were manufacturers of advanced digital office equipment, including color laser printers, multi-function peripherals (MFPs), copiers, scanners, and faxes. Revenue was generated by selling its specialized imaging processors and comprehensive development kits to these OEMs. The company operated with a full turnkey model, where it managed the entire production supply chain, from sourcing wafers to assembling and testing the final chips, thus delivering a risk-free, production-ready component to its clients.

A key product was the TAKPRO-800, a highly integrated SoC designed to power next-generation color printers and imaging devices. This chip consolidated system, networking, compression, and communication functions into a single unit, capable of processing up to 40 color pages per minute. The TAKPRO-800 was built on an ARM946E 32-bit CPU and featured a flexible, PCI-based architecture. This allowed OEMs to use a single, low-cost platform to develop a range of devices with varying capabilities, from standard printers to more complex MFPs. To support development, Tak'asic provided the TAKRDK reference design kit, which included firmware, drivers, and a suite of software tools. On January 1, 2005, the company rebranded to Tak Imaging to better reflect its focus. It was eventually acquired by Insilica in August 2007.

Keywords: imaging processors, system-on-chip, SoC solutions, digital office equipment, fabless semiconductor, ASIC design, OEM solutions, printer technology, multi-function peripherals, image compression, hardware solutions, software solutions, print controller, TAKPRO-800, reference design kit, embedded systems, laser printers, digital imaging, semiconductor manufacturing, corporate technology, Jean-Paul Vernière, Doug Goodyear, Bruno Paucard